Intrigue? It's All On Foreman

January 16, 1990|by JOHN KUNDA, The Morning Call

How do you gauge this fight?

One guy is nearing 42 years of age and looks more like one of those professional wrestlers. The other guy looks a lot better, but he has only fought a total of 12 rounds in the last eight years. Besides, this guy is supposed to have a heart like jelly.

Nonetheless, there they were, a bulky George Foreman and a heartless Gerry Cooney being introduced as heavyweight contenders last night to a live, puffed-up crowd of 10,000 in this city's Convention Center, and, who knows how many more on pay TV.

The fighters expect to take home better than a million dollars apiece. That alone has to tell you something about (A) the fight game itself; (B) the buying public, and (C) promotion.

If there is any intrigue at all surrounding this fight it centers on Foreman and his gutty comeback. Give the man credit. While he looks out of shape at better than 250 pounds, he put his nose to the grindstone and went out and said, "I'm coming back."

Mind you, here's a guy who quit fighting at age 28, right at the peak of a career that had some promise. For 10 years he did nothing with the sport, but a lot with his life.

It takes some nerve for Foreman to get into the ring at this stage. Oh, they fattened him up (pardon the pun) with some patsy heavyweights. They were tests that the bully on your block might have passed.

Foreman now has himself thinking he can fight. He can punch, all right, but there's more to fighting professionally than punching.

Nobody came around knocking doors down to get into this fight, but there was enough intrigue to at least take a look see.

Who knows about Cooney, who has fought only 12 rounds since his 1982 loss to Larry Holmes. Apparently he's in shape, weightwise, anyway. He's only five or six pounds heavier now than when he fought Holmes.

Cooney was never a dedicated boxer when it came to training. He was a party guy from day one.

For this fight, though, he kept telling the boxing world that he's not in it just for the money. Whatever that means.

Neither of these guys should have designs on meeting Mike Tyson. Even P.T. Barnum couldn't sell that one.

With some younger fighters in the wings, Foreman and Cooney would hardly merit consideration for a Tyson fight. Not even Cooney's "Great White Hope" label that was used in his fight buildup with Holmes would help in making a cause for a Tyson bout.

Best that Foreman and Cooney keep their eyes on the likes of Tim Witherspoon, another one of these comeback oldtimers. Witherspoon fought here last Thursday and said he'd love to meet the winner of tonight's fight.

Another million-dollar paycheck.

A drop in the bucket, I guess, when you look at the figures for the Tyson-Evander Holyfield fight. Tyson stands to get around $25 million, give or take a million; while Holyfield's payday is pegged at 11 million, give or take a million.

Foreman's been the main man in this fight, getting the publicity that promoter Bob Arum needed to pull this thing off. Cooney has been the laid back participant, which is a role he has taken from the start of his checkered career.

In some quarters, this fight has been called a "fantasy" fight. A dream world kind of thing.

Foreman has denied this. He says both he and Cooney have taken the fight seriously. "We've both trained hard for this fight," he said. "It's serious for me, I know that."

Let's call it a hype, for the lack of a better word. There have been times that Foreman agreed.

"A lot of critics (of the fight) say I haven't been tested," the former Olympic champion said. "And they are only saying that because it's true."